About Me

Walker of a handsome beagle named "Scout." Dad of a passel of wonderful kids. Husband to a great woman. Working to keep life, love, goodness, and liberty together. Trained and indoctrinated in modern liberalism for most of my life, recently rediscovered classical liberalism, now called American conservatism. Pragmatic conservative based on results testing.

Sunday, August 15, 2010

This is a civil rights issue you won't read about in the newspaper. American military are being prevented from voting by state bureaucrats who drag their feet while getting ballots to the military, and then throw out the votes when they come back from the other side of the world. These states are denying the American military the right to vote. They are treating the military like second class citizens.

If you live in one of these states, call your representatives. Call your senator. Call your secretary of state and demand that they all do the right thing and get the ballots to the military in time so military votes are counted. No excuses will do.

the MOVE Act — signed into law in October 2009 — set a mandatory minimum time of 45 days before any federal election to mail ballots to overseas voters. MOVE was a rebuke to the bureaucrats who were stuck on a non-statutory 30-day standard used as a minimum in previous elections.

Blind bureaucratic reliance on the 30-day standard resulted in 17,000 overseas ballots not being counted in the 2008 election. The military postal service says 60 days is needed to get ballots to our troops and back again, but a law is only as good as the people enforcing it.

The new law contains a waiver provision which allows states to exempt out of the requirements by demonstrating an extreme emergency. They also must submit a plan that provides sufficient time for military voters to have their vote counted. For example, if a state had a constitutional provision in conflict with MOVE, and more time was needed to pass a constitutional amendment, a waiver would be appropriate if it included extra time after the election for the vote to be counted, even if late. A waiver is inappropriate if a state simply decides not to comply with MOVE.

Twelve states have applied for waivers from protecting military voters in the 2010 election: New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, Maryland, Delaware, Wisconsin, Colorado, Washington, Hawaii, Alaska, and the District of Columbia.